In our latest Mirror release, we’ve listened to your feedback and are excited to bring you improved workflows, enhanced visibility for reflection feedback, and more. These updates make reflecting with Mirror more insightful and accessible for educators and students.

Faster student and teacher workflows

Logging in and exiting group mode is now more seamless with email and pin code access. This provides a smoother and more secure log-in experience and takes another thing off a teacher’s plate.

After unlocking student mode, teachers are now brought directly to the Dashboard. This helps teachers gain insights about their students’ learning gaps even faster. 

Immediate feedback on the dashboard

Immediate feedback is now surfaced on the dashboard. This provides a better experience for both teachers and students, allowing them another opportunity to learn from feedback and improve their reflective skills faster.

Other improvements

In addition to these features, we’ve made several other improvements and updates:

• Reflections will continue uploading even after you logout or shutdown your Mirror before the upload has finished.
• The Coach role now allows instructional coaches to view all reflections within a Group.

Next steps

As always, your feedback drives our improvements, and we’re committed to making Mirror better for everyone.

What’s next? Set up your reflections with these new features and tag @Swivl on X to share your experiences.

Join the Mirror demo program

If you want to experience the power of Mirror for individual and group reflection, sign up for the Mirror demo program. This free trial is open to all educators based in the United States and Canada.

The post Mirror release: May 23, 2024 appeared first on Swivl.

This article was written in partnership with IDEA Illinois. To explore partnership opportunities with Swivl, email Swivl Community Engagement Manager, Sara Candela.

What if social and emotional learning had never become capital-S SEL?

Students need social and emotional skills for school and daily life. Especially today, where technology can manipulate our emotions and erode our social skills unlike ever before. None of this should be controversial.

Yet somehow, strict lines have been drawn around what has now become known as SEL, and these tensions are preventing us from addressing present and future challenges in education. 

What if there was a new way forward through the divide over SEL? One that integrates social and emotional development as part of academic learning. One that softens the lines and finds common ground between sides. 

We think a new way forward is possible by making reflection a part of every learning activity, for every student, every day. We can explain this best by first explaining the reflective technology we’ve built to enable it. 

A classroom built around Reflective Technology

Mirror is Swivl’s newest software / hardware classroom solution, which automates reflection, embeds it into daily classroom routines, and enables more and new social learning experiences. 

In a fully-outfitted classroom, with 3-4 Mirror devices in a few corners of the room, and students using Mirrortalk.Ai software on Chromebooks or other devices, everyone can reflect at once, or even several times a day.

From reflections, Mirror generates feedback for teachers on how students think about their learning, and tracks the transformations students are experiencing. Teachers can use this as feedback to tailor their whole class and individual instruction. Student-friendly feedback is also generated instantaneously after each reflection, helping students build reflective skills, and gain motivation for learning.

Mirror also generates rich social and emotional insights, which can be routed to SEL coordinators or counselors, providing a real-time feed into the wellbeing of students throughout the building. 

This new classroom technology setup has the chance to address so many of today’s challenges with SEL programs.

Focus on academics

What if students built social and emotional skills during regular classroom learning? What if teachers got social-emotional insights as part of this process? Mirror makes this possible.

We believe isolating social-emotional learning may be less effective and less efficient than the new way forward we propose. Even the best SEL activities can feel like mere icebreakers because they are invented scenarios, not real situations that call for social and emotional skills. It’s no wonder that many see this contrived approach taking up precious class time that could be spent elsewhere.

Building classrooms around reflection provides a new way for students to develop social and emotional skills within the context of real learning. Making reflection part of every individual and group activity means that students are constantly evaluating how their social and emotional experiences play a role in their learning. They are constantly getting feedback on how to tune their response to situations to better develop their reflective and broader academic skills. Because this approach also means more instructional time for teachers and better data for the whole school, it seems like the optimal path forward.

Most importantly, we believe integrating social and emotional skill building and academic learning can lead to better results in both areas. Emotions play a crucial role in learning and memory. Reflection can help students to identify and eventually regulate their emotions, enabling them to work through more challenging learning experiences and ultimately achieve better outcomes.

Generate authentic social-emotional data

There are over 66 million search results for “SEL daily check-in,” pointing to the popularity of directly asking students about their emotional states as part of a classroom routine. But measuring students’ wellbeing directly has the potential to become unreliable. Students can easily manipulate their answers to surveys or questionnaires based on the response they do or do not want from adults.

Instead, what if educators could get ongoing, accurate data about students’ emotional wellbeing as students went about their regular classroom activities? By evaluating the way students think and talk about their learning experiences, we can now get a more authentic look at students’ actual mindsets and sentiments. 

Mirror generates longitudinal insights on unique yet useful metrics like:

• Vibe: A score that gauges sentiment of students for teachers, and provides feedback to students on the most constructive tones for their reflections.
• Zone: A score based on Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) that measures optimal stress levels and provides feedback to students and teachers on increasing or decreasing the learning challenge. 
• Order of Mind: Leveraging Piaget’s Stages, and Kegan’s Constructive Development Theories, we report on what order of mind students are exhibiting, as a source of whether the way students are thinking about their work is developmentally appropriate. 

Gathering insights this way has two major benefits. First, students develop their reflective skills, i.e. they improve their ability to narrate experiences, articulate feelings, and generate realizations about their learning.These are essential skills to making each lesson an object lesson.

Additionally, there’s less room for manipulation of responses when the assessment happens not through direct questioning, but by analyzing the language related to sentiment and mindset that students use when reflecting. This is now possible, and Mirror makes it easy, through the power of AI.

Getting more social 

We’ve built Mirror to enable small group learning and group reflection, and not the kind that is mediated by screens as is often the case with popular learning apps. We’re talking about small group learning with opportunities for eye contact, reading body language, and other essential social learning skills. These authentic interactions, along with the feedback and insights they produce, open up new potential in social learning as much as emotional learning with Mirror. 

What kids really need is social experience they can reflect upon. Everyone knows that real group work is messy and complicated. Students need a chance to work together on real classroom challenges, and experience all the negotiation, cooperation, and mini-conflicts that emerge during the process. Then, they can come to new realizations about their social skills and learn from those of their peers, through reflection.

While group social learning experiences can be time-consuming for teachers to plan, manage, and assess, our reflective technology makes group work and reflection seamless for students, and stress-free for teachers. 

The new way forward

As stances around the nation towards SEL go from ideas to policies, we believe that we won’t be able to resolve this issue by ending the existing debate and picking a winner. 

Instead, we need to chart a new way forward, one that acknowledges the undeniable need for students to build social and emotional skills, but to do it in a way that keeps the focus on academic learning, and transcends name-calling and politicization. 

Reflective technology is the essential piece that allows us to travel this new path. By prioritizing students’ reflective skills, we can help them evolve through the challenges of modernity by building academic, social, and emotional skills in a new, integrated way. 

It’s time to evolve our understanding of social and emotional development, and in doing so, help all students evolve themselves, too.

Try Mirror free for 30 days

Curious how Mirror can help you integrate social-emotional skill building with regular classroom learning? Signing up for the Mirror demo gives your school dedicated support and an opportunity to try Mirror for free. Throughout your demo, our team will walk you through unboxing, personalizing Mirror for your goals, and anything else you may need to be successful with reflection.

The post A new way forward appeared first on Swivl.

In this week’s release, we’re bringing more delight, more motivation, and more learning to the student experience. How are we doing that? Instant feedback on student reflections!

This update also includes: the new Summative Focus for end of year reflections, flexible response times for adults and older students, and better insights.

Now, students get personalized feedback read aloud to them just seconds after they complete a reflection. We’ve heard from many Mirror demo users that reflection feedback is the most powerful part of the experience. But until now, there was no easy, immediate way for students to access their feedback. With this update, we’re excited to see how students can become even more invested in building their reflective skills, as they instantly read and hear about the insights they’ve shared, and how they can reflect even more deeply next time.

There’s no better way to experience the new instant feedback feature than with the new Summative focus. This reflection focus works perfectly for end-of-year student reflections, and can help you simplify your summer planning, amplify your productivity, and even deepen connectivity with students one last time before they advance grade levels. Use this focus with Workspace to automate and add reflection to end-of-year group projects. 

To make reflecting with Mirror more flexible across ages and grade levels, we’ve updated the way response times work. Users now have 15 seconds to reflect on each question as a default. For younger students, 15 seconds is the limit. However, older students and adult users have unlimited time to respond, with the option to move on to the next question when they’re ready.

In addition to these updates, we’ve also improved insights across all reflections, making them more grade-level appropriate.

Don’t have Mirror yet? See below.

The Mirror demo program

If you want to experience the power of automating reflections firsthand, sign up for the Mirror demo program. This free trial is open to all educators based in the United States and Canada.

The post Mirror release: April 18, 2024 appeared first on Swivl.

This article was written in partnership with IDEA Illinois. To explore partnership opportunities with Swivl, email Swivl Community Engagement Manager, Sara Candela.

For centuries we’ve known there are two requirements for learning: engagement and reflection. Yet, in recent years we’ve greatly emphasized engagement, often at the expense of reflection. It’s enough of a shift to wonder, is that the right direction?

Jean Piaget argued that we reflect on our experiences to move through specific life stages. Similarly, Robert Kegan argued that we advance to the next stage of development when we’ve reflected on issues from the previous stage, a process of mental transformation.

They, and others, came to the same conclusion about learning: we engage with people, activities, and information, then we reflect. As a result, we make new realizations that become a part of us. That’s how learning and growth occur.

However, modern students experience a massive imbalance of these two requirements. Students’ lives are filled with more engagement than they can handle, and arguably less reflection than they need. The reflection that is part of their school experience is too limited.

Teachers are increasingly feeling that they have to work harder than ever to reach students whose test scores and behavior often seem to be getting worse.

We believe a new path forward that addresses these challenges is possible by seeing reflection for what it is: a necessary tool for learning. 

Over-engaged

Many students are over-engaged before they even enter school. 

Addictive social apps, immersive video games, and, now, powerful generative AI present kids with people, places, and experiences far more interesting than the four walls of a classroom. 

How can a math worksheet compare to viral videos? More and more, we’re seeing that it doesn’t. 

It seems that classroom learning has become just another experience for students, albeit not a very engaging one, and one that currently doesn’t help students develop the ability to see themselves as learners.

As many report, if learning doesn’t capture students’ attention, they see no reason to pursue the challenge. Take for example, the recent post on X, in which a student reflection included the response “I don’t really see school as a place to learn. I see it as doing work to achieve a grade.”

Ironically, pursuing student engagement as a standalone goal is a common response to these challenges of modernity. If teachers made class as interesting, relevant, and entertaining as students’ digital lives, the thinking goes, they might sit down and do the work. 

But school will never be as engaging as consumer technology, nor is it obvious that it should be. For one, the precise relationship between learning and engagement is still surprisingly unclear. As renowned education thinker Alfie Kohn said, “Engagement is insufficient because we need to consider whether a task demands mental effort.” Emphasizing engagement overlooks the other required piece of the learning process, reflection.

Reflection is the antidote

We believe students need more reflection than ever to integrate their daily learning experiences.

This can happen by recognizing that reflection is actually a skill students can develop. Through a significant increase in both the quantity and quality of reflection, students will have the opportunity to integrate their subjective learning experiences as objective lessons and to start seeing themselves as learners again.

When students are presented with quality, relevant reflection prompts on a regular basis, and they receive feedback to help build their reflective skills, they gain the ability to:

• Narrate their learning experiences with increasing levels of detail and accuracy
• Identify feelings they’ve experienced about or during their learning
• Think through new realizations that arise from experiences, and 
• Plan goals or next steps to make use of new learnings

The sequence above describes the process of transformation of the mind – where subjective learning is turned into objective lessons, and students gain the ability to see themselves as learners. Yet reflection’s place in school as a required tool for learning has been limited or often even removed, especially amidst recent educational trends.

Where reflection is most common today is in SEL programs. While reflection for SEL is indeed valuable, we need to remember its important place in the learning process, so students can reap its full benefits. 

Perhaps most importantly, we should recognize that reflection is the integration of learning and social-emotional development into one process, and that reflection is a skill that can be developed with practice. Seeing this opens up possibilities for new approaches in both areas.

Transforming minds

There are a few different perspectives on how to handle education’s challenges of modernity. Some advocate for a reversion to tradition, with a focus on academic rigor and emotional resilience. Others make a more progressive case, leaning into student engagement and social-emotional needs above all else. 

We’re realizing that the best path forward is a new, third way that integrates the best of both sides. One that is both uniquely possible and uniquely needed today.

This new path we’re forging is where teachers pair every opportunity for student engagement with high-quality student reflection, and personalized, immediate feedback in response to those reflections. Now, with the power of AI, we can make the development of reflective skill a reality. This approach builds students’ social and emotional skills in the context of supporting their academic learning.

Most importantly, when we finally restore reflection’s rightful place in our over-engaged world, we give students the skills and opportunity needed to integrate all their subjective experiences into objective lessons, transforming their minds for the better. 

Let’s go beyond giving students more to think about. Let’s help them build a better mind to think with.

Try Mirror free for 30 days

Curious how Mirror can automate reflection in your classroom? Signing up for the Mirror demo gives your school dedicated support and an opportunity to try Mirror for free. Throughout your demo, our team will walk you through unboxing, personalizing Mirror for your goals, and anything else you may need to be successful with reflection.

The post Reflection: the under-emphasized key to learning appeared first on Swivl.

Mirror makes it easy to give individualized feedback to every student.

Marcy Curr | Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25

USE CASE

Help students improve communication skills through reflection

Marcy Curr

Speech and Debate Teacher

School/District

Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25

Grade Level High School

Reflection challenges in speech and debate

Idaho-based speech and debate teacher Marcy Curr has always valued reflection for herself and her students – who are 2024 Debate State Champions. However she faced a few obstacles when she asked her students to reflect on their speaking skills and debate performance.

Marcy began to observe a disconnect between the types of reflection she asked her students to complete and the nature of the course. “I’ve always struggled with asking my students to complete written reflections because this is a verbal communication course.” She tried giving students rubrics for self-assessment but felt they did not foster an authentic reflection experience. Time constraints also limited the amount of personalized feedback she could give students. “There’s not enough time in a day to give feedback to each of our students.”

Providing immediate feedback holds extra value in Marcy’s classes – she seeks to help students improve speech and communication skills that can be challenging to self-correct. “If I wait for the end of the speech to give feedback, they don’t remember what they did,” she explains. Overall, Marcy needed a more engaging and efficient tool for reflection and feedback.

A smooth experience leads to real progress

Marcy sees a direct connection between introducing Mirror as a reflection tool and seeing an improvement in her students’ communication skills. “With Mirror their next speech is better because they’ve taken time to reflect in between speeches on what they could improve on.”

With students reflecting and receiving feedback with Mirror during class, she now has more time to review speech recordings with individual students and provide coaching to them. “Mirror lightens the burden for teachers,” Marcy explains. 

Mirror’s reflection feedback and scoring system also acts as a new source of motivation for her students, pushing them to meta-reflect on their own reflections and seek areas of improvement. “They’re watching their reflections to see where it’s says, ‘next time to improve your reflection work on this.’” This process of self-analysis, sparked by a desire to see their scores rise, has led to a deeper engagement with their reflection process.

Part of why Marcy and her students have adopted Mirror so quickly is its ease of use. “The guided process was super easy,” Marcy explained, describing the reflection workflow. Getting started was also a breeze for her. “I loved Mirror’s unboxing process. It made me feel like I could order a Mirror for anyone in my department.”

Daily reflection and more feedback

Day to day, Marcy’s students use Mirror to reflect on their speech and debate skills, identify areas of improvement, and refine their work. “I make them watch and evaluate videos of their speeches,” Marcy explains.

Mirror allows her to shorten the time frame between when students learn or practice a skill, and when they reflect on it. During debate practice, students will deliver speeches, and then immediately go to their Mirror and reflect. “We did a reflection after every single one of their speeches,” Marcy notes about a recent practice session.

When written notes from a teacher might be impractical, Mirror has opened up new opportunities for reflection and feedback. “My students frequently have to get up and give a one minute introduction speech. I can’t type meaningful feedback in that time frame. Instead, I’m going to record them. Then, they’re going to use Mirror to reflect.”

Marcy has already planned expanded use cases for Mirror into her upcoming courses. “In my syllabus for next trimester, I’ve built in reflections a couple of times a week using Mirror.”

Try Mirror free for 30 days

Curious how Mirror can automate reflection in your classroom? Signing up for the Mirror demo gives your school dedicated support and an opportunity to try Mirror for free. Throughout your demo, our team will walk you through unboxing, personalizing Mirror for your goals, and anything else you may need to be successful with reflection.

The post Elevating student speaking skills through reflection appeared first on Swivl.

A New Way Forward

April 26, 2024

Facts: What’s been going on?

• On Wednesday, we released an update to Mirror software that improved audio recording and uploading, and added an “Adult” group type, useful for higher-ed, PD groups and any situation where adults are reflecting. Be sure to update your Mirror next time you turn it on.

• What if there was a new way forward through the divide over SEL? One that integrates social and emotional development as part of academic learning. One that softens the lines and finds common ground between sides. We explain how Mirror makes this possible in our latest blog, a partnership with Illinois Digital Educators Alliance.

Feedback: What are we hearing?

This week, a Mirror user leading a teacher preparation program in the Midwest said:

“As I give feedback, I see related changes in Mirror quickly. Sometimes, with other programs, it can feel like the feedback’s going nowhere. I appreciate that feedback to the Mirror team is considered and implemented where appropriate.”

He’s right! We love hearing your feedback, and consider it carefully as we plan the Mirror roadmap. Have your own feedback to share? Reply to this email and let us know.

Future: What’s up next?

• Much-anticipated Spanish-language support is coming in the next 1-2 weeks, along with other heavily-requested updates, including a new pin-based login option, downloadable reflection transcripts, and more customization options for reflections.

• There’s still time to register for the Week of AI! Swivl is proud to be sponsoring this timely, super-practical event, filled with speakers like Holly Clark sharing their experiences with and tips for using AI for teaching and learning. Register today.

Findings: What are we thinking about?

This week, we’re thinking about paradoxes, and the role they play in hidden intelligence. So often, the limiting factor in learning something new is a paradox that we struggle to resolve.

These can be simple, like understanding that a fraction is both a part of a whole and its own entity. Or they can be complex, like a teacher trying to balance their own creativity with the bureaucracy of a large organization.

How does this relate to reflection? Reflective skills help us see what’s holding us back and set goals to move past those blockers. Feedback powered by reflective technology can even identify the paradoxes we may be facing, and by presenting them, reveal a path towards resolving them.

The importance of learning together

March 7, 2024

Facts: What’s been going on?

We’re hitting as many events as possible in 2024, and our travels continued this week with a stop at the Michigan Science Teachers Association Conference.

Swivl CEO Brian Lamb and Account Manager Julieann Derra were there to spread the word about reflection’s potential and share Mirror with as many educators as possible. They were joined by Mirror user, Science teacher, and Swivl community member Keith Piccard (@KeithPiccard), who helped attendees see Mirror’s potential for their work. One takeaway is that Science teachers see Mirror as a support for group work like labs and experiments.

Findings: What are we thinking about?

A study came out this week that demonstrated again the importance of writing and physical interaction towards learning. This has us thinking even deeper about how we support small group work with Mirror.

Our original vision was based on realizing there was no technology dedicated to supporting small group work, and nothing built for AI interaction through cameras and voice. We were inspired by the idea of technology moving to the side, so students can engage with each other in physical space.

We are starting to wonder if this is why so many of our demo users and teachers we’ve met at conferences are asking for small group support tools. Perhaps they see the need to make learning physical and social again. Perhaps they see Mirror’s potential in making that happen.

We’ve been prioritizing individual reflections in our development work, but now we’re pushing extra hard to get our small group support tools out.

Feedback: What are we hearing?

(1)  Illinois-based history and government teacher Chris Johnson recently shared how he is using Mirror to have students reflect on final projects.

(2) Teachers are telling us that they wish all of their students could reflect during one class period. We know that class time is scarce, and we’re working on a few solutions to make this a reality. Read more about those below.

Future: What’s up next?

• Shorter question sets are coming soon. When needed, shorter questions help more students to reflect in the same amount of time. Mirror experiences for phone, tablet, and web are coming soon. This means teachers and students can reflect with more flexibility, both in school and at home.

• In about a week or two, demo users will have a chance to try new, more powerful group work features. Our design and development teams are putting the finishing touches on a new experience that allows teachers to create plans with guided steps, paired tools, audio instructions–and a reflection at the end, of course.

A step forward in customization

February 29, 2024

Findings: What are we thinking about?

What if every reflection experience in your class perfectly fit the learner, the activity, and your objective?

How much more could you learn about student progress? Most importantly, how much more could students learn about themselves?

Until now, customizing the reflection experience for every learning scenario and need was simply too time-consuming. 

That experience is now possible with Mirror.

Facts: What’s been going on?

Mirror 3.1

Mirror 3.1, released February 28, 2024, allows you to customize reflections and unlock new potential for reflection’s place in the classroom. 

You can customize reflections by choosing a focus like Mindfulness, Gratitude or Depth of Knowledge. You can also customize reflections based on the teacher’s stated learning goal.

Combining a focus like Depth of Knowledge with a stated learning goal unlocks new potential for reflection, turning the experience into a classic assessment of student learning. When you consider all the ways Mirror’s focus options can be customized by teacher goals, the options are endless.

Current users: Update your Mirror today to take advantage of these exciting new customization features!

AACTE

In other news, our colleagues Mike and Edward recently attended the higher education conference AACTE. There, they explored use cases for Mirror with higher ed professionals, and discussed the growing demand for using Mirror with student  teachers to create a multi-layered reflection program. 

#IDEACon

A few states over, our colleagues Adam, Julieann, Rachel, and Sara attended #IDEACon this past weekend. Dozens of educators had a chance to try Mirror, and heard Rachel speak about the Potential of Reflection. Here’s conference attendees and speakers Tisha Richmond (@tishrich), and Andrew Easton (@EastonA1) with Sara and Adam (right). 

Feedback: What are we hearing?

Elementary and early childhood education (ECE) teachers tell us they are happy that Mirror is “AI lite.” 

In other words, we bring the power of AI to automate reflection, without the data and privacy concerns that come with other AI tools. Students don’t have direct interaction with AI through Mirror, and we don’t share any student data with AI.

Even though we’re using AI, we’re doing it in a way where teachers have full control. It’s a teacher AI tool, not a student AI tool.

You can generate questions, but then preview them and edit them, before students ever see them. And that’s something that nearly everyone can get on board with.

Future: What’s up next?

• Speaking of elementary and ECE, we’re hard at work to make Mirror a better reflection experience for our youngest learners. We’re putting the finishing touches on several features that make Mirror more accessible and effective for Pre-K and early elementary students.

• Swivl CEO Brian Lamb will join our colleague Julieann at the Michigan Science Teachers Association conference this week with user and community member Keith Piccard (@KeithPiccard). If you plan to attend, come hear them speak about the Potential of Reflection with Mirror.

The post Swivl’s reflections appeared first on Swivl.

This week, we’re releasing Reflectivity 12.6.0, an exciting step forward in helping schools transform coaching and professional development programs into holistic reflection programs.

Reflectivity guides teachers to deeper levels of thought through video and written reflection, feedback and discussion, and thoughtful planning about next steps in the reflection cycle.

It all happens through Reflectvity’s engaging and motivating collaborative reflection experience. 

Reflect in Groups

Groups foster frequent, open-ended, and social reflection among peers, coaches, and mentors. Creating a group is easy. Anyone with access to Reflectivity can do it. 

Groups have flexible settings for membership and content, making them a powerful way to bring more support, feedback and connection to professional learning workflows. For example:

• Coaching: A coach can have 1:1 conversations with specific teachers, and view these private interactions in one convenient, easy-to-access space. 

• New teachers: Invite new teachers to a private group where they can share their experiences. Together, group members can celebrate wins, empathize with struggles, and brainstorm solutions.

• Support initiatives: Create a group open to your whole team, department, or grade level. This is a powerful way to reflect together on new technology or curriculum. 

With a space to reflect and connect at any time, Groups empower you to make your existing professional learning more dynamic, ongoing, and collaborative.

A flexible reflection experience

Reflection looks different for everyone, but educators consistently include three key pieces: evidence, thinking, and plans. 

With Reflectivity’s new reflection experience, inspired by the 4Fs Framework, you can reflect with the level of depth that’s right for your situation and needs. 

• Evidence: Upload a video or URL as evidence begin a conversation with a coach, colleague, or mentor about your experience. 

• Thinking: Reflect in writing to share your findings, and name the feelings you have about your experience. 

• Plans: Keep the reflection cycle going by planning for the future step of your learning. 

Each reflection includes a discussion section where you can share resources, receive feedback, or coordinate logistics about your work.

Go deeper with Skills

As your team builds a reflection routine around reflecting in Groups, Reflectivity helps you reap individual and organizational benefits. 

By adding Skills to a reflection, teachers can share more context about their work and focus more specifically on one area of their practice. When new Skills are added to a reflection, a new Group is created. Other teachers can discover this Skill Group via any reflection that includes it, helping new Groups to grow organically.

This way, Groups in Reflectivity are a dynamic, live look at your organization’s professional learning priorities. 

Beyond video to holistic reflection

Reflectivity still has all the powerful features you need to reflect and share feedback on instructional videos. 

But what if every teacher on your team regularly reflected on progress and exchanged feedback with colleagues? What improvements to student outcomes would you see if your teachers were developing to their fullest potential?  How much more adaptable could your organization be? 

The post Build a holistic reflection program with Reflectivity appeared first on Swivl.

Reflectivity’s latest release helps teachers become more adaptable by socializing reflection. 

Socializing reflection means sharing your learning process in a community of colleagues with similar challenges and goals. 

When you share your work with colleagues and exchange ideas about skills you’re building, you gain the insights and feedback needed to adapt to any challenge. This leads to stronger connections, new skills, and an even higher order of thinking. 

This release makes that process easier and more powerful than ever.

Explore colleagues’ learning

We noticed that users love seeing a “zoomed out” view of their Skill communities because it gives a birds-eye view of the reflection happening in their organization.

Now, the My Skills, Most Active, and New tabs keep you focused on the activity happening in your organization’s Skill communities. You’ll always know where colleagues are gathering to make progress on hard problems, and where new ideas are emerging about the latest challenges the organization faces.

When time is limited, it only takes a few moments to browse a Skill community, encourage colleagues, or get inspired by their reflections.

Socialize reflection at every step

Top-down professional learning often makes it difficult for teachers to connect around common challenges, and exchange ideas about shared goals.

Now, Reflectivity gives you a visual reminder that you’re part of a community of reflective educators, sharing what’s working in real time. We’ve done this by moving all interactions and reflections to the right panel, so you stay in the community as you work.

Additionally, each step of the skill-building process is now an act of reflection shared in your Skill community. These steps include joining a new Skill community, making plans, and engaging in deeper written or video reflections. Your colleagues can encourage you at each step with a Boost, or leave a comment to start a discussion.

When your organization socializes reflection inside a Skill community, learning happens with the support of others.

Adaptable educators reflect together 

Teachers face more change, at a faster pace, than ever before. This is a modern problem that requires a modern solution. Traditional, top-down professional learning moves too slow to keep up. 

Instead, teachers need the freedom to explore many solutions for challenges they face. And they need a dynamic community where they can exchange ideas and feedback by socializing reflection. 

Reflectivity’s latest release makes this new vision of professional learning possible. Imagine what it’d look like if your organization became a community of adaptable educators reflecting together.

The post Socialize reflection in your organization with Reflectivity appeared first on Swivl.

In particular, Reflectivity now helps innovative educators explore how to use AI in their instruction, and share what’s working across their organization.

A new way to approach PD

One major update in this release is the introduction of Skills. 

Previously, teachers used Reflectivity to explore Topics. But we’ve heard that Topics can be a limiting term. Topics are broad, and bring to mind ideas. While ideas are a valuable starting point, teachers grow through taking action. 

Skills describe the solutions teachers are working on in their classrooms. There can be many Skills under one Topic. For example, the Topic Classroom Management includes Skills like Giving Instructions and Setting Expectations.

Teachers view Topics and Skills on the Inspiration board (previously the Popular board).

Discover new solutions

The Inspiration board is where teachers go to discover Skills to address their needs. By sharing and considering many solutions at once, teachers learn and adapt faster. This approach departs from the typical top-down approach to professional learning.

By filtering the Inspiration board, teachers can view Skills categorized by Topic. Right now, AI is a Topic that calls for teachers to adapt like never before. With this in mind, teachers will see 20-30 AI Skills on their Inspiration board when they first login.

Beyond AI, teachers can view or add Skills for Literacy, Classroom Management, and more. 

Find motivation and connect

Once teachers get inspired to explore new skills, they can head to the Activity board. This is where they find motivation to make progress and connect with colleagues.

The Activity board shows updates about their colleagues’ work along with their own, which serves two purposes. 

Seeing colleagues take action can motivate teachers to do their own work. Additionally, these updates can spark connections between teachers with shared interests. 

As teachers try new methods and share what works, solutions spread across the organization.

Adapt to any change

Reflectivity’s latest updates help teachers find motivation, connect with colleagues and build skills. It’s all aimed at growing and adapting to changes like the impact of AI.

For leaders, Reflectivity helps staff pursue many solutions to new challenges that often emerge and shift rapidly. When leaders provide a place to try new ideas, move fast, and learn together, teachers can adapt to any change. 

The post Explore Reflectivity’s new tools to help teachers adapt to AI appeared first on Swivl.

After working with PD and coaching programs for over a decade, we’ve seen the power of collaboration. Whether it’s a PLC or conversation during prep, there’s magic in exploring ideas together.

But collaboration is often limited by location and schedule. Without the time and place, educators miss opportunities to learn from each other.

Today’s release addresses this challenge. We’re giving teachers a look into each other’s work, making it easier to connect around shared topics. 

Build skills and boost motivation – together

Each topic in Reflectivity is now a community. In topic communities, you can see updates about the work your colleagues are doing.

Topic communities are where educators can connect with colleagues down the hall or on the other side of town. They’re where educators gather to explore new solutions to shared challenges. 

By seeing others’ progress, you’ll feel more inspired to take your own next steps.

A familiar interface with new possibilities

You can stay connected with your topic communities in two familiar ways. 

1. Filter the Community board (previously the Advancing board) by topics you’ve joined. 

This gives you a quick way to see progress your colleagues have made on the topics you care about. You can then encourage those colleagues with a boost.

2. You can view detailed activity about any topic. 

Sometimes you want a more granular look at the work your colleagues are doing. For example, you may want to read all reflections written by colleagues about a topic.

Making space for radical collaboration

In an age of change powered by AI, top-down PD no longer works. 

As Swivl CEO Brian Lamb recently wrote,“professional development needs to look less like traditional training and a heck of a lot more like creative design projects.“

Reflectivity aims to inspire the radical collaboration that makes the design process effective. Through this approach, educators can build connections, learn skills, and adapt to any challenge.

If you are an existing Reflectivity user, explore these new features on web and mobile. You can also read more about Reflectivity here.

If you don’t have access to Reflectivity, say hello to Reflectivity Kits! Reflectivity Kits are a fun, social way to reflect together and build upon each other’s energy during an event.

Educators around the country use Reflectivity Kits to capture learnings during PD Days, new teacher trainings, Ed Camps, summer sessions, cross-curricular PLCs, district wide conferences, and to help set professional learning goals.

The post Reflectivity’s latest update helps teachers build skills together appeared first on Swivl.